The Lens of Astrology / Part 1

Interview with Liz Greene, by Nicholas Campion

Liz Greene and I met in London on
August 14, 2001, to discuss her work in astrology - and her attitudes toward
it. In Part One of this interview (which appeared in The Mountain Astrologer,
Dec. 2001/Jan. 2002), we talked about Liz's thoughts on the current
Saturn-Pluto opposition. In Part Two, we cover her background in astrology and
her conclusions concerning its nature and practice.

The
original article appeared in the American astrological magazine "The
Mountain Astrologer" (Feb/Mar 2002). The edition is still available on
their website www.mountainastrologer.com

Nick
Campion: Liz,
a fairly crucial question to start: How exactly did you get into astrology? Was
it a gradual discovery or a sudden revelation?

Liz Greene:
It was
probably more sudden than gradual. I don't remember a time when I wasn't
conscious of astrology; going back to childhood, I think it was always there. I
had no issue about it, but when I was at university, I went to an astrologer to
have my own chart done, and that was really the kick off. It intrigued me, and
I wanted to know how it worked, so I started teaching myself.

Nick
Campion: You
must have been in your early twenties.

Liz Greene:
I was
nineteen. I had some friends who were going to see Isabel Hickey, and they
said, "Why don't you go and get your chart done?" So, she was the
person. She seems to have been the main astrological figure on the East Coast
of the United States at that time. A lot of people knew her, including Howard
Sasportas and Darby Costello[13].
Many people passed through Isabel Hickey's portals. She was a fairly die-hard
theosophist, very esoterically inclined and quite dogmatic. But her astrology
was sound, and her belief system suited the times.

Nick
Campion: And
what were you studying at university?

Liz
Greene: Psychology.

Nick
Campion: Was
that your major long-term interest?

Liz Greene:
Yes. It
started when I found a copy of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams at the age of
twelve.

Nick
Campion: So,
you were a child prodigy?

Liz Greene:
Well, I
was certainly a child Freudian!

Nick
Campion: Was
discovering Freud a real revelation?

Liz Greene:
It was a
major revelation. Suddenly the penny dropped. It wasn't that everything Freud
said immediately made sense to me, but the presentation of the fact that human
beings have another side that they don't know about - that there are
unconscious processes always at work in them - made perfect sense. I knew that
anyway, but nobody would believe me. So, here was a piece of writing that
confirmed what was clearly visible to me at a very young age. I started
investigating. I started reading anything I could on psychology, as well as any
literature that dealt with psychological issues. My inspiration was mainly
psychology and psychologically inspired literature rather than astrology.

Nick
Campion: Was
your psychology degree Freudian-oriented? Was it behavioural?

Liz Greene:
It was
behavioural.

Nick
Campion: Rats
in cages?

Liz Greene:
Yes,
rats in cages. And lots of sociology and statistics, which I hated. But I think
I understood, even then, that it was necessary to have a piece of paper, a
qualification, so I put up with it.

Nick
Campion: So,
you discovered astrology while you were studying for your degree. Did astrology
then open something up when you were nineteen, like the discovery of Freud had
when you were twelve?

Liz Greene:
Yes,
certainly. Astrology made sense of psychology. Exactly as when I discovered
Freud, something suddenly went "click". Astrology showed me aspects
of ourselves that we don't normally notice, facets of life which we don't
usually understand.

Nick
Campion: And
so you saw an immediate connection between astrology and the psychology you had
already been studying. At what point, then, did you discover Jung?

Liz Greene:
I read
Jung at some point in my teens, but it didn't quite make sense in the same way
as Freud. But I went back to his writing in my twenties, and then it clicked.

Nick
Campion: And
that took place in the light of astrology?

Liz Greene:
Yes.

Nick
Campion: Were
you, at that time, working in the professional world of psychology?

Liz Greene:
After I
took my doctorate, I did fairly conventional, orthodox psychotherapy, including
some Freudian techniques. I hadn't done any formal Jungian training at that
point. I didn't do that until much later, in 1980. Before that, I did some
training with Ian Gordon-Brown and Barbara Somers at the Centre for
Transpersonal Psychology in London. That began to give me what I wanted -
something that was very deep and thorough, that I could get my teeth into and
work with in depth.

Nick
Campion: Psychoanalysis
gave you that depth?

Liz Greene:
Well,
yes, Jung's version of it. I am not a Jungian any more than I am any sort of
-ian or -ist, but I felt the training had more scope to help people than the
Freudian training.

Nick
Campion: Jung
himself drew so much from astrology and the esoteric traditions that it is
perhaps easier to bring the two together than is the case with, say, Freud and
astrology. You moved to London in the early 1970s. I remember seeing your name
in Time Out, the London listings magazine, as teaching astrology classes for an
alternative organisation and thinking: "Oh, I should go to those" and
then getting swept up in something else.

Liz Greene:
That was
in 1975-76. The organisation was called Gentle Ghost.

Nick
Campion: Since
then, in all your years of teaching and working with astrology, have you come
to a working definition of it?

Liz Greene: Nice question! Not a definition in a
"carved-in-granite" sense, no. For me, astrology is a symbolic
system. It is a lens or a tool which utilises particular kinds of symbolic
images or patterns to make sense of deeper patterns inherent in life that are otherwise
impossible to grasp on an intellectual level, even though it is possible to
experience them in other, non-intellectual ways. It is a means by which life
can be interpreted in terms of the underlying patterns of its rubric. And
that's why I think all the other lenses - like the Tarot, Kabbalah, mythology,
literature, poetry, drama, painting, sculpture - are all not only equally valid
ways of apprehending those patterns, but have fed into astrology while
astrology has fed into them. I don't think there is such a thing as pure
astrology. To say that is like saying there's a pure English race. Astrology is
a lens, a system of symbols.

Nick
Campion: It
seems to me that, if we take the definition of astrology as a lens, this
implies that the astrologer is looking at something; in that case, we can
choose to put the emphasis either on what is being looked at or on the looker,
the astrologer. Then we can ask different questions, examining how astrologers'
perceptions determine their astrology, or we can talk about what they are
looking at, what they are seeing through the lens. Does the lens distort it?
Are astrologers looking at anything real? Do you believe that there is
something real out there that is astrology and that we are actually looking at?

Liz Greene:
It
depends on what you mean by "real." The zodiac doesn't exist in
concrete terms. It is the apparent path of the Sun around the Earth, which we
have divided into twelve segments; each segment is assigned an image and a set
of meanings and behaviour patterns. But the zodiac doesn't exist in the sense
that there are animals floating out there. So, on one level, the whole system
is not real. This table we're sitting at now is the kind of thing that we
define as real. If you take reality as something subtler, and you approach
reality as being the connections, links, resonances, or correspondences between
things, then, yes, these patterns are real. But there is no way that they can
be measured in a quantifiable sense, according to instruments of so-called
reality. When you ask me that, the whole problem is that I don't know what you
mean by real. Or, rather, I do know what you mean, but if Richard Dawkins
asked, "Is it real?" he would mean something quite different by
"real" than I do.[14]

Nick
Campion: I
was using "real" in the Richard Dawkins sense.

Liz Greene:
In that
sense, no, astrology is not real. This doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or
that it is not valid, but in his sense, no, I don't think astrology is real. I
believe there is an objective patterning or interconnectedness or unity of some
kind or a set of resonances. You can use any phrase you like, whether it is
mystical or hermetic or any other language you fancy. And it does exist outside
us. It's not just in the perceptions of astrologers.

Nick
Campion: You
open Relating with a powerful quote from Gerhard Dorn, talking about the unity
of everything:

Knowest thou not that
heaven and the elements were formerly one, and they were separated from one
another by divine artifice, that they might bring forth thee and all things? If
thou knowest this, the rest cannot escape thee. Therefore in all generation a
separation of this kind is necessary'. Thou wilt never make from others the One
which thou seekest except first there be made one thing of thyself.[15]

That's a very strong statement of
the idea that astrology flows naturally from an understanding of the unity of
heaven and earth and of the notion that the astrological experience begins with
us. You also acknowledged modern, quantity-based science in the same book, and
I'm wondering whether you still agree with words that you wrote 25 years ago.
You said that "astrology is ... a map of the system of laws by which the
energies of life operate - an astrology vindicated by statistical research and scientific
investigation."[16]
Does that represent your current thinking? I am interested in that statement
because it has been claimed that there has been a change in how astrologers
view scientific research and statistics as a way of validating astrology, and
that negative statistical results have encouraged an anti-scientific stance
amongst astrologers. So, has your own view changed since 1977?

Liz Greene:
I think
that research is very valuable in astrology, in the sense that it can highlight
patterns. Sometimes research reveals patterns that we don't expect, and our
assumptions are challenged. So, yes, it is very valuable for us to do
statistical research. However, I don't think it is valid from the point of view
of trying to prove that astrology works, because if you have the kind of
mentality that is dead-set against astrology, you will try to blow holes in the
statistics anyway. And usually you can take any set of statistics and destroy
it. Astrologers can pursue statistical research for their own purposes, but
there is no point in trying to convince skeptics. If I do 300 charts during the
course of a year for people born with the Sun opposite Saturn, and 80% of them
either had fathers who left them when they were young, or fathers who died
early, or fathers who abandoned them before they were born, or fathers who were
cold and distant, that's statistical research. I can then say: "Well, 80%
of the 300 Sun-Saturn charts that I have done have this kind of psychological
pattern." It may then be useful for me to explore further what that
Sun-Saturn aspect means. But if I took that research to somebody who defines
statistical research in a more "scientific" sense, they would say:
"Three hundred people is nothing. What you need is 3,000 and a neutral
control group." Whatever you do, they'll find a way to set other tests. I
think the research we do is very important for us. Whether it convinces anybody
outside, I don't really care, to be quite honest. I think we need to do it for
our own constant development.

Nick
Campion: Then
it seems to me that, in terms of definitions of research, what you have just
outlined is a qualitative approach based on case studies.

Liz Greene:
Yes, in
small or large quantities.

Nick
Campion: The
issue of whether there is anything in astrology that is "out there"
and "real" often comes down to the claims astrologers make for
particular techniques or ways of constructing a horoscope and the house system.
Competing house systems is one of the main problems in astrology from that point
of view, quite apart from the problem of the sidereal versus tropical zodiacs.
How do we decide which house system to use, let alone which zodiac? You once
said that "you should use the house system that works for you." That
sounds like you are putting the astrologer in the centre of the equation,
rather than the astrology.

Liz Greene:
Only in
part. I think that all these different structural approaches open a window on
something, but it is a narrow window and no single one of them reveals the
whole landscape. I think that's why they all have validity to some astrologers
but not to others.

Nick
Campion: So
would you agree with astrologers who say that astrologers get the clients that
they need?

Liz Greene:
Yes.

Nick
Campion: If
you follow that idea through, then it is a very provocative one: There is a
client somewhere, in a distant place, who is suddenly moved at a particular
time to phone you up and ask: "Can you read my chart?" Is there a
sense in which you are summoning that person?

Liz Greene:
I don't
know if it is summoning. I think we are back to resonances again. Let's say the
Saturn-Pluto opposition is coming into square to your Sun, and that represents
some kind of symbolic picture of what you yourself become at a certain time.
You experience, or are buffeted by, or get in touch with, a particular kind of
energy. It is both inside you and outside you. You may experience certain kinds
of things in your life connected with that opposition. How you deal with them
is very individual. You may say, "Right! This is a very hard, tough
aspect. I am going to do a Ph.D. under this one" and make some use of it.
Or you may lie back and be a victim and say, "Oh, someone's broken into my
house" or "There's a riot down the road and they burnt my car"
or whatever. The nature of the experience is connected to how able you are to
deal with what you are at that moment. But equally, as an astrologer, you may
get a whole run of clients who are resonating to what you are going through.
So, you may see lots of Scorpios, lots of Capricorns, or people who are getting
hit by that opposition themselves. People may come to you with a mirror that in
some way resonates to the same thing you are resonating to. I don't think the
astrologer summons the client. Rather, when you arrive at a certain point,
things that resonate with that will come into your life. It is not causal.

Nick
Campion: If
you use the word "resonating" to a materialist scientist like Richard
Dawkins, he would no doubt have a physical explanation of what resonance is.
Are you using the word in a poetic way?

Liz Greene:
Well, it
is also literal. If you hit a tuning fork, and there is a properly tuned guitar
sitting next to it, there will be an audible resonance. However, if the guitar
tuning is imprecise, there will be nothing. That kind of resonance happens on a
physical level.

Nick
Campion: Does
that mean that we all respond to the music of the spheres?

Liz Greene:
I think
that we are part of the music, too. It is a chain of constant chords and
resonances.

Nick
Campion: Let's
go back to your example of the Saturn-Pluto opposition. If somebody with that
transit can choose either to be a victim or to pursue a very structured path,
like taking a university degree, then what is the nature of that choosing? Is
the ability to make a choice itself linked to another astrological pattern in
the chart?

Liz Greene:
No.
There is something that operates within resonances which psychology calls
consciousness. I certainly don't have a definition of what that is, except that
it is Mercurial. Consciousness is like the Mercurial figure in alchemy. It
isn't limited by or bound by astrological patterns. Consciousness inhabits and
expresses through those patterns, yet it can operate outside and within and
around them, and it is what allows us to make choices. I think that it's what
transforms our way of responding to these patterns. Either we simply are the
pattern and we enact it blindly, which is what happens in all the animal
kingdoms, or we bring that element of consciousness to bear. The pattern
doesn't then go away, but it gets more notes in its chord.

Nick
Campion: Are
you saying that consciousness is somehow something extra to astrology,
something beyond astrology?

Liz Greene:
Yes, I
think it is.

Nick
Campion: That
sounds like what the Neo-platonic philosophers would have called Soul. They
would have said the Soul is above the body, above the stars, even. But if
consciousness is beyond astrology, what about the so-called conscious planets
in the horoscope, like Mercury, Venus, and Mars, as opposed to the outer,
unconscious planets?

Liz Greene:
No
planet is guaranteed to be conscious. The planets should be seen as
representing patterns. If an individual is aware of the pattern within them,
the planet is being expressed consciously, but, just because it is an inner
planet, that doesn't necessarily make the pattern conscious. Experience has
taught me that. People may wander around totally unconscious of what the Moon
means in them or what Venus means in them. Whatever pattern of motivation the
planets represent is part of human nature, but we can be totally oblivious of
it. We project it, we are at its mercy, we are buffeted by it, we become it, we
identify with it, we're run dry by it, but we are utterly unaware that it is
us. It looks like it is "out there" or it is happening to us, but it
is in us - it is us. The fact that it is inner, though, is no guarantee of its
being in any way connected with consciousness.

Nick
Campion: But
how do we know when we are actually being conscious of something?

Liz Greene:
Hard to
explain, that one. It has something to do with a sense of standing in a still
centre and being aware - not just on an intellectual level but all the way
through - of something that you know as your self, but at the same time you are
not identified with it. There's some kind of space between you and it. So, if I
am having a Mars transit today, and you say the wrong thing and I get really
angry, then if I am unconscious of that anger, I just become angry. I don't
even know I am angry. Out come the abusive words, or I take a swipe at you, or
I pour my water over you. There's nobody home in the sense of a conscious
individual. I have no idea of what I am about to do, what I am about to say,
what I feel. I just act and then I say: "Oh, I am terribly sorry, I just
lost my temper, I didn't mean to." However, if I am aware, then I hear
what you said, and I know I am angry, and at that moment I may even know why I
am angry. I may feel the anger, but I am not the anger, which means that I can
say to myself: "Did he really mean that? What has he triggered in
me?" I can then work on it; if I am still angry by the time I have
finished working on it, I can then say calmly: "Are you aware of what you
have just said? It was very offensive." Or I can just keep my mouth shut,
because I realise that my anger has nothing to do with you: It is my problem.

Nick
Campion: Then
our own internal thought processes seem to be crucial. If we do see astrology
as a language, then could we talk about that conscious state of mind as being
Geminian or Virgoan, perhaps? Is it analytical?

Liz Greene:
I don't
think that it involves analysis. Some people may think it out in concepts, but
consciousness is something that can be watery, fiery, or earthy as well. It is
a quality of awareness, which means that one is not identified with what one is
experiencing. One stands outside it, not dissociated from it, but outside it
enough to actually recognise it. You can recognise it on many levels; it
doesn't have to be intellectual.

Nick
Campion: So,
when astrologers say in conversation, as they do so often: "Oh, I'm having
a bad time because I'm having a Saturn transit," would you regard that as
a wrong thing to say?

Liz Greene:
Well, I
say it too. But I know what I mean when I say it. To talk like that doesn't
really communicate what is going on. It is shorthand. We don't have a bad time
because of a transit. The transit is just a symbolic signature of what we are
experiencing. It isn't causing it. I am not in the business of going around
correcting everyone's speech, and I say it too: "What a rotten day!
Saturn's on my whatever." It's shorthand.

Nick
Campion: So,
if a transit is a signature, then that reminds me of the astrological aphorism,
one popular with Charles Carter: "The stars do not compel, they
incline." Geoffrey Cornelius added: "They don't incline or compel,
they signify." In that sense, are transits best seen as signposts rather
than causes?

Liz Greene:
I also
think the planets signify. I don't believe they impel, compel, dispel, or
"do" anything. They are simply signatures.

Nick
Campion is Past President of the Astrological Association of Great Britain. He
has been a student of astrology since the early 1970s and has taught the
subject since 1980 - for London's Camden Institute, the Faculty of Astrological
Studies, and most recently, for Kepler College. He is also currently a graduate
student in the Study of Religions Department at Bath Spa University College,
England. Nick is the winner of the 1992 Marc Edmund Jones Award, the 1994 Prix
Georges Antares, and the 1999 Spica Award for Professional Excellence. His
books include Mundane Astrology and The Book of World Horoscopes. Information
about these books is available on his Web site: www.nickcampion.com

[13]
Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas founded the Centre for Psychological
Astrology together in 1983. Darby
Costello is a lecturer at the centre.

[14]
Richard Dawkins is Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford
University and one of the U.K.'s top writers of popular science books. He is
also a militant atheist materialist and a strong public opponent of astrology,
as well as of all paranormal claims and metaphysical and religious beliefs. His
attack on astrology is available on the Astrological Association's Web site: www.astrologer.com/aanet

[15]
Liz Greene, Relating: An Astrological Guide to Living with Others on a Small
Planet, London: Coventure, 1977, p. 1.